


The Concept Is You

by Biscuit Lion (cookiethelion)



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, M/M, this is basically a RTK 3rd round AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24789721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiethelion/pseuds/Biscuit%20Lion
Summary: Hwitaek's having a hard time rearranging Love Battery. Lucky for him, Shinwon's on hand to help.
Relationships: Ko Shinwon/Lee Hwitaek | Hui
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	The Concept Is You

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because I can't get over ONF suggesting another group should cover Love Battery for the third round ([from here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_TXgYgzL3o))
> 
> English translated lyrics comes from [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KyBS8zSCYg).

“You just chose your partners for the third mission collaboration,” says Dahee, while looking at the camera. “With your partners, you will exchange the song you chose, and prepare for the second round of the third mission.”

Hwitaek glances over at ONF, and it should have occurred to him that something’s up when he sees all six members staring back at them, eyes wide and with their hands over their mouths. He just about glimpses them past Oneus, who are all busy bowing and apologising to The Boyz; and he figures that, in comparison, whatever song ONF chose surely couldn’t be that bad.

A few yelps and shouts in the studio draw Hwitaek’s attention away, and he looks up at the overhead screens. He sees <Be Mine> and <Gogobebe> above The Boyz and TOO, and he figures that the screens on their side must have something written on it as well. He sees Hyunggu take a step down onto the stage, and he leans forward just enough to look up at their own screen. <It's Raining> is above them, which he is pretty sure is their choice, unless ONF had also thought of the same song—

“No…” he hears Changgu gasp, just as Hyunggu falls to his knees and puts his head in his hands.

“What is it?” says Shinwon.

Hwitaek can’t see past Jinho, who is leaning as far as he can go without falling over, so he leaps onto the stage to take a better look. The moment he lands, he hears Jinho laugh—both out of concern, and out of relief that he has no involvement in the song. He walks up to Hyunggu, who is still on the floor, and then he spots it:

Hong Jinyoung  
<Love Battery>

A headache develops straightaway. Never mind _how_ he was going to arrange a trot song, how the hell were seven _men_ supposed to sing Love Battery? He looks at ONF as he returns to his seat, and he feels a faint urge to march over to them, pretend to place his hands around whoever’s neck he can reach first, and demand answers. It would calm him down, and probably make for an interesting bit of telly.

Instead, Hwitaek does something more mundane. He sits down, feels Jinho sling an arm across his shoulders, and sighs.

***

Hwitaek may be more sensitive and stubborn than he cares to admit, but his personality isn’t built to sustain anger for a long time. He spends the whole of next day raging at ONF for picking Love Battery in the first place; the day after that, he’s almost forgiven ONF and instead starts getting angry at the production team members involved in the song selection process; and it’s only the day after _that_ that Hwitaek’s rage starts to subside, and worry takes over whenever he listens to the song, which is almost ten hours straight every day.

The morning after that is spent at 20 Space. ONF aren’t due to arrive at the café for another hour, but Pentagon are already there, loitering away the time it takes for the TV crew to set up all the cameras, lights, and sounds. Hwitaek doesn’t mean to drift away from the rest of his teammates, but he’s busy arranging his thoughts in order. He wants to get along with ONF—he’s seen how happy Hyunggu becomes whenever he gets to talk to his hyungs in the group, and he knows Yuto likes to reminisce over his trainee days with U—but there’s just enough annoyance left in him that he still wants to demand answers.

“Hyung,” Shinwon says, from behind him. Then Hwitaek feels his hands on his shoulders, and he tilts his head back as Shinwon starts to massage him. “We’re being filmed.”

“I know,” says Hwitaek, and he smiles. “I just need to calm down.”

Of course Shinwon is the first person to notice his mood’s down; Hwitaek is sure he’s been growing increasingly sensitive to him since the start of January. When he had been stressing out over the finishing touches on Universe: The Black Hall, Shinwon was the one who often stayed with him until he was ready to leave his studio. Sometimes, just as he thought of leaving the studio to grab some food, he heard a knock on the door, and Shinwon popped his head in and thrusted a takeaway bag into his hands. Once, when he returned to the dorm at four in the morning, he’d found a bleary-eyed Shinwon sat in the living room, his face lit up only by the brightness of his phone; and Hwitaek had to sit through a lecture on the benefits of sleeping more than four hours a night.

“Look at it this way,” says Shinwon, and he breaks Hwitaek’s train of thought, “at least we weren't given something like Arirang.”

Hwitaek snorts. “Funnily enough,” he says, “I think I’d have an easier time arranging Arirang.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

Hwitaek shakes his head, and then turns around. For a second, his shoulders feel weird now that he isn’t being massaged by Shinwon anymore.

“I’ve decided,” he says, “I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.”

“Are you sure?” Shinwon raises his eyebrows.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to give them hell for it. I’m just going to ask one question.”

Shinwon just smiles at him, and then guides him back to the other members.

Hwitaek is professional enough to put aside any bad feelings as they start filming; and by the time he sees ONF enter the café, all that’s left is just a small nagging thought in the back of his mind. He manages to ignore it throughout the meeting; everyone smiles at each other, compliments are thrown all over the place, and they settle on Kill This Love. Plus, he thinks, J-Us does have soft, smooth hands—which is probably why he reaches for them near the end of the recording.

“I want to ask one thing,” he says, when he feels J-Us hold his hand back. He smiles, and then continues, “who suggested Love Battery first?”

Hwitaek squeezes his hand. J-Us whines a little—and just like that, Hwitaek is at peace again.

***

Hwitaek spends the majority of the following 48 hours in the studio. In that time, he manages to create the first half of Kill This Love, but the file for Love Battery fails to materialise.

If there’s one thing he cannot be accused of, it is that he didn’t try. Hwitaek had played the original on such a constant loop that he's heard Jinyoung’s voice in his last four dreams, and he knows the lyrics off by heart now. Somehow, he has to fit in a rap or two and a dance break in his arrangement, and he can’t do any of that until he has a concept in mind. He clicks out of the music programme before he slumps forward, and his forehead hits the keyboard.

A knock on the door jolts him upright. He studies the shadow through the frosted glass, and he’s fairly certain he knows who’s come to visit him.

“Come in,” he says. He almost speaks casually, but then adds in the appropriate honorific, just in case.

“I thought you might want some company,” says Shinwon, as he enters the room.

Hwitaek smiles as an idea crosses his mind, and he stops Shinwon from sitting down.

“Read me the lyrics,” says Hwitaek, as he opens the internet browser on the computer. “Don’t sing it. I want to hear the lyrics spoken.”

“Okay,” says Shinwon, as they trade places. “You’ve never asked me to do this before.”

Hwitaek sits on the sofa by the door, and shrugs. “I want to try something different.” Maybe, he thinks, this is what he needs: a different approach.

He watches Shinwon lean forwards, and then shuts his eyes when his teammate starts to recite the chorus. Listening to Shinwon talk about love and batteries feels different to hearing it being sung. It’s like he can focus on the lyrics more this way, he tells himself, and he’s sure it has nothing to do with the person reading it.

“ _It’s okay if you don’t have the perfect face_ ,” he hears Shinwon read. “ _It’s okay if you don’t have the perfect body_. Wait, that’s not right.”

Hwitaek opens his eyes. “What?” he says. He knows it’s right; he can hear Jinyoung sing it in his mind right now. “That’s correct.”

Shinwon shakes his head, and swivels the chair around so he’s facing Hwitaek. There’s a grin on his face.

“I know this song too,” says Shinwon, in a tone that suggests he doesn’t. “That should say, _it’s okay if you don’t have the perfect height_ —”

“Ya—!” Hwitaek giggles as he launches himself off the sofa and at Shinwon. He ends up slotting one knee in-between the side of Shinwon’s thighs and the chair armrest, with his other foot firmly on the floor; his body’s flush on top of Shinwon’s, and his hands keep swatting whichever parts of the younger man he can reach. “Read it properly—”

“— _if your face looks like a rooster_ —” Shinwon manages to say, amidst his own giggles. He has his arms raised in defence, and Hwitaek ends up patting his wrists.

“Two can play at that game,” says Hwitaek. “ _It’s okay if your temper’s not perfect_ —”

Shinwon rolls his eyes. “Excuse you,” he says. “I think you’ve got the shorter fuse here.”

“I’m older than you, so I’m allowed to.” Hwitaek smiles as he speaks. “ _It’s okay if you pick your nose_ —”

“Ya—I don’t pick my nose—” Shinwon’s face scrunches up, and he manages to grab one of Hwitaek’s hands. “ _It’s okay if you’re still stuck in 2016_ —”

“Don’t be ridiculous, that doesn’t even fit the rhythm.”

“I don’t think yours did, either.”

“Shush.” Hwitaek’s other hand finds Shinwon’s, and it strikes him that he’s just balancing on Shinwon now. He catches a faint reflection of himself in the computer screen, and it does kind of look like they’re practicing acrobatics.

“So, have you got a concept yet?”

“I don’t know what to do.” Hwitaek groans, and then flops forward until he’s completely lying on top of Shinwon. He lets go of Shinwon’s hands to wrap his arms around his shoulders, and he buries his head into the nook between Shinwon’s neck and shoulders. He lifts his leg off the floor completely and settles his knee on the other armrest, effectively straddling Shinwon even though their legs aren’t touching. There’s a light pain running down Hwitaek’s spine from the way he’s arching his back, but that disappears the moment he feels Shinwon run a hand up and down his back. His other hand idly runs through the back of Hwitaek’s head, ruffling his hair as strands slip through the cracks of his fingers.

Shinwon starts to hum the melody to Love Battery, and Hwitaek shuts his eyes like he’s listening to a lullaby. He smiles at the idea of Shinwon singing about how he needs love to recharge his battery, and how it would sound in that low, soft voice of his. Maybe their performance should just be Shinwon on stage, alone, for the whole song. That would be nice, just like how warm and cuddly Shinwon is right now.

“I think you’re the concept,” says Hwitaek, without thinking.

His brain does all the thinking a second later, and Hwitaek squeals as he feels the hand on his back, and in his hair, freeze. He pushes his head even harder into Shinwon’s neck, as he blushes so much that he’s sure his teammate can feel the heat radiating from his face.

“What kind of concept am I?” says Shinwon.

Hwitaek shuts his eyes and, with little difficulty, imagines he’s cuddling Shinwon on a sofa in their dorm, not the studio. Any second now, he’s sure he’s about to hear Hongseok yelling from the kitchen, demanding to know which lazy bastard filled the sink up to the brim with dirty dishes. He pictures Hyunggu lounging on the other sofa with a book in his hands, and turning the page as he answers Hongseok that he hasn’t been anywhere near the kitchen for an hour now. He imagines Shinwon confessing into his ear that the dishes are his fault, before he throws his head back and loudly professes his innocence, all while Hwitaek giggles and playfully threatens to expose him.

That’s the concept Hwitaek imagines; but when he returns to reality by drawing his head back, and his eyes meet Shinwon’s, he has no idea how to convey it in words. He figures that “home” is the most accurate word, but it feels much deeper than that—and Hwitaek decides the best way to express it is to kiss Shinwon.

The hand on the back of his head pulls him in closer as Shinwon reciprocates, drawing him into a slow, chaste kiss. Hwitaek drags out their kiss until he has to breathe, and he draws back. He smiles when he spots the deep blush across Shinwon’s face, and the dark glare in his eyes. Hwitaek leans in again, this time pressing his lips just that bit harder on Shinwon’s, and his hand trails down over his torso, and settles on the waistband of his jeans. His thumb circles the button of Shinwon’s flies, and the temptation to pull it off in one clean attempt grows the longer he touches him there—

It’s Shinwon who pulls away first this time.

“Not here,” says Shinwon softly, as his eyes dart to the door. Hwitaek nods. There’re too many agency staff still working in the building. Besides, the frosted glass only offers so much privacy.

Hwitaek gets up off the chair, and then settles for the much more comfortable position of sitting in Shinwon’s lap. He dangles his legs off the left armrest, but his head stays pressed to Shinwon’s neck, and his arms remain around his shoulders. Shinwon, in turn, still has one hand in Hwitaek’s hair, but his other arm now drapes over Hwitaek’s hips, and his hand presses the small of his back.

“We’re definitely continuing this at the dorm,” says Hwitaek.

Shinwon’s face lights up, but then it falls just as quickly. “You never return until, like, two in the morning.”

“You’ll just have to be patient.” Hwitaek smiles as he pats the top of Shinwon’s head.

Shinwon pouts. “I can’t wait for _three_ hours. That’s too long.”

Hwitaek reaches over to the computer, and shakes the mouse to wake up the screen again. The lyrics appear once again.

“I’ll leave earlier if you finish reading the lyrics,” he says.

“Fine,” says Shinwon, and he uses his feet to pull the chair closer to the computer. Hwitaek clings onto him tighter, even though he knows there’s no chance of him falling off. “Where did I get to again?”

“You were going over the first verse.”

Shinwon clears his throat. “ _It’s okay if you don’t have the perfect face_ —oh, I remember this now—”

Hwitaek looks up at him. Shinwon’s eyes are on the screen, but there’s a smile on his face that looks mischievous.

“ _It’s okay if you don’t have a healthy eight hours sleep a night_ —”

Hwitaek whines over Shinwon’s giggles, and smacks his shoulder hard.

“Read it properly,” says Hwitaek, in a higher pitch than usual.

“You just told me to read the lyrics,” says Shinwon. “You never said I had to do it properly.”

Hwitaek groans. They’re going to sleep over in the studio at this rate. Lucky for them both, he’s not that stubborn; he decides to give it an hour at most, and then leave. A few seconds later, he decides that an hour’s too long, and that thirty minutes will suffice. Then that feels too long as well, and he cuts it down to ten minutes, then five, and then figures that after the next line, they can leave. They’ve spent long enough in the studio.


End file.
